Tom McMasters-Stone

Make America Grate Again

When the Phantom has uttered those words so many fabulous times, he, of course, was not talking about the current POTUS.

Could he have been? Maybe.

I wrongly preached a wait-and-see approach after the election — after all, no president has governed the country in the same way that he campaigned, right?

Well, until now.

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If Ulysses S. Grant had had Twitter, he, too, would have been drunken tweeting at 3 a.m.

Of course, after what Grant did — throwing unlimited bodies at the Confederacy until they submitted — he certainly had a reason to drink… more so than any president, except maybe LBJ.

Presidents typically try to surround themselves with brilliance — people who can fill their weak points, boost their knowledge base.

They also campaign to one side or the other, and attempt to govern more toward the middle. Compromise, right?

One of my criticisms with Obama was his tendency to start his positions too close to the middle. While I understand that type of integrity, he then was in no position to try for a compromise in the middle, since he was already there.

The biggest example was the ACA — he never really had single-payer on the table, or people even AT the table, to frame the discussions.

Anyway — Trump.

What can you say? Or, rather, where do I start?

The one-third is now calling the two-thirds “snowflakes.” The ostriches, with their heads buried in the sand, are calling the majority snowflakes? What do ostriches know about snow?

And don’t give me that crap about “he won!” Yes, he did, but he did not win with a majority of the vote, and his popularity has been plummeting ever since. And his defenders have neither been pounding on the law nor pounding on the facts — they have been pounding on the table.

Fake news. Yeah, right. The New York Times. The Washington Post.

If it’s all “fake” news, why would you fire the FBI director to derail the investigation? What are you afraid of? If it’s all phony, one would welcome any and all investigations to prove it, right?

I really loved the Tweet reply I saw to Joan Walsh, that Sasha and Malia got a “hands off” policy, and so should Jared Kushner.

Sasha and Malia did not have an office in the White House, nor were they key advisors to POTUS. However, this is the type of logic we are faced with from the Neanderthals.

Barron Trump is off limits, even though he hasn’t seen his father in months. The rest of Trump’s children, the adults, must be held accountable — for what they say and what they do, especially for accepting 110 million foundation dollars from the Saudis on the same day their father agreed to a $100 billion arms deal with the same folks.

Forget all the crap Trump spewed during the campaign about the Clinton foundation and conflicts of interest, right?

Eric Trump just said in a live interview that the Russia connection is a “hoax.” Wow. I feel better already.

Trump has been giving away classified information, and received a terse warning from the UK about disclosing intelligence on the Manchester bombing.

Forget all the crap Trump spewed about Hillary’s email and the classified information contained therein, right? I mean, after all, those emails were just transmitted between intelligence professionals loyal to the United States.

What has he done for us lately? You mean other than alienate most of the NATO world?

The rest of the free world knows that climate change is happening. They know that the consequences will be catastrophic, reshaping whole coastlines around the world, and threatening many ecosystems.

Climate change has been happening forever. We know that. Is the current climate change man-made? I don’t know, probably nobody knows. However, the inarguable facts are that man is certainly contributing to it. There can be no doubt that greenhouse emissions are making the change much worse, much more rapid.

The Twitist-in-Chief somehow can’t bring himself into alignment with the rest of the world, and finally has decided to exit the climate change accord. AYFKM? And why the delay? I guess he has to move some of his energy stocks around.

Of course, he has lied, and is set to break the hearts of all the coal miners to whom he gave so much false hope — and they foolishly bought into it.

“I won’t cut Medicaid!” Lie.

“I am a firm supporter of LGBT rights.” Lie.

“I will show my tax returns.” Lie.

Tax cuts for the rich. Horrible cuts in services for the poor.

Ad nauseum.

POTUS has surrounded himself with rich, white male — yes, men — mostly white men, anyway. They either agree with POTUS or they move to the back of the influence line.

Zbigniew Brzezinski died last week. One of the things that Jimmy Carter appreciated most about him was his ability and willingness to disagree with the president while maintaining a staunch loyalty. Give advice, accept the decision, support it with facts and logic.

And there’s the rub for the current administration. Facts, logic, and campaign promises cannot be brought to bear to support most of what they have attempted so far. Instead, they are belittling the opposition personally — shooting the messengers, if you will. We saw it before the election, and we are seeing it now.

Is it a disaster beyond our imagination? Not for many of us, unfortunately.

Where will these investigations lead? To the top, no doubt. And I don’t believe for a minute that Vice President Mike Pence didn’t know. As I have said before, sweep them both out of office, or leave the embarrassing-but-ineffectual Trump in place.

Make America Grate again? He has done so. Two-thirds of America is grating and grinding its teeth, as America’s reputation under this clown plummets.